Think your product is the next big thing? If so, avoid the critical mistake of launching prior to evaluating its viability. You may think your product is perfect the way it is but I’m sure you’ve lost the ability to be unbiased after spending countless hours, days, and months on it.

Changes that are critical to the success of your product will be highlighted and validated after you allow your target audience to test your product. Feedback can be gathered via paid surveys, market research, or direct conversations from your family and friends. All of it can be used to improve and polish your business prior to hitting the marketing.

(If you're someone looking for a starting point for your product business, check out our How to Build a Product Business course to guide you through the beginning stages.)

Here’s three specific reasons why you need to gather this feedback prior to officially launching:

1. You don’t want to develop a business around an idea that has no market or customer base to support it.

You created this product to solve a problem, but does it really do that? Is this a real problem for many people or just a few? You won’t know this without allowing others to test and provide feedback. Grab at least 25 – 50 potential customers test your product to see if they identify with it the same way that you do and if they’d even consider purchasing it in the first place. This feedback could show you that your ideal target market doesn’t exist and that they don’t find your product useful. Or it could show you how to position your unique selling propositions (ex: lower price point, innovative technology, unique ingredients, upgraded features, etc.) to grab your customer’s attention. Even if you have an amazing product idea, your business strategy could fall on deaf ears without this information.

  2.   Without careful consideration, you may waste critical time and resources.

To make your idea the best, you need an outside perspective. Customer feedback will prompt you to make adjustments that can ultimately save you time and money. For example, you may have invested in custom bottles or expensive soft-touch packaging for your product because you felt like it was needed. These expensive upgrades ended up increasing your cost of goods and cutting into your overall profit margin. Upon reviewing the feedback from a customer survey, you discovered that your target audience didn’t even notice or care for these extra details. In the end, you could have chosen more cost-effective packaging since the existing packaging did nothing to enhance your customer’s overall experience.

  3.   You need to avoid having future customers catch errors or quality issues.

First impressions are lasting impressions. On a larger scale, you don’t want to go into mass production of your product without allowing someone to test it multiple times. Does the pump on the bottle work correctly? Are there any spelling errors on the packaging? Are the instructions easy to read? Significant defects in your product design can result in returns, refunds, and a poor customer service experience. All of these things can deteriorate how your brand is positioned in the marketplace and decrease your customer base. Don’t allow your customers to be your quality assurance and quality control departments. You should create one internally through focus groups and product testers.

Photo by Ann H from Pexels.

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